


When the city goes silent the ringing in my ears gets violent

by marsellia_rose



Series: The world is just a teller and we are wearing black masks [5]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Immortal Fake AH Crew, M/M, Michael-centric, New Jersey, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, Pre-Fake AH Crew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 05:06:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11051931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsellia_rose/pseuds/marsellia_rose
Summary: Michael Jones had grown up knowing that when he was old enough, he would join the Family.That was his life. It didn't matter what he wanted.But he did want.Michael's backstory for Immortal Fake AH Crew au.





	When the city goes silent the ringing in my ears gets violent

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry this took so long. Title comes from Fall Out Boy's Jet Pack Blues.

Michael had grown up knowing that he would one day work for them. His father did, and his father before him, and when Michael was old enough he’d start as well. This was never something that bothered him.

He grew up knowing his name was Michael Vincent Jones, and that when he was old enough he would be an enforcer for the Family. 

But he never really knew what that meant.

He’d grown up watching gangster movies. He’d grown up with his father doing business behind closed doors, never really knowing what went down. He’d grown up with an over-glamourized version of what being a mobster really meant. 

He thought it was all guns and girls and money.

He never really thought about who they would have to hurt to get to where they were.

He was a kid, for fucks sake. What did he know about the world? 

Not nearly enough. He knew what he was told, what he was allowed to know. He knew how to fight, cause that’s what they taught him. But it wasn’t till he was fourteen- still really a kid- that he got his first taste of what the real world might be like. 

He’d spent his whole life watching his father pack up guns and leave the house, and come back with money. When he asked, his dad would say that he was just doing his job, “getting the bad guys and all that”. So to him, his father was always a hero. Or anti-hero, maybe. A gangster, but the glamorized, Hollywood kind, the sort in De Niro and Pacino movies. The sort that the girls fall in love with, who never really do anything too bad. 

That’s who his dad was, to him. That’s what his dad did. It was an interesting life, growing up in the Family. He went to public school, got in fights. Had a relatively normal childhood, except the only kids who could come to his house were other Family kids. Which was fine- he liked them well enough. 

And yeah, maybe he was a little more serious, a little more violent than other kids. But that was fine. He was still within the acceptable norms. No one was too worried- that edge of violence would help him, later in life, and for now it wasn’t causing any problems. 

They taught him how to fight, how to size up his opponents. Weak spots. All the things he’d need to know later in life.

He was 12 when it finally became a problem.

It shouldn’t have been, not really, only he got in a fight with a couple of 14 year old’s and it got violent and bloody real fast. And he held his own, because he knew how to, so the administration wasn’t really sure who to blame or what to do, cause there might have been two of them and one of him and they might have been bigger and older but he came out looking like the victor, and really they didn’t even know who had started the fight.

His father came to pick him up. The school seemed concerned, and he spent a decent amount of time talking with them. Money exchanged hands behind closed doors, and this incident stayed off his permanent track record. The other two kids were suspended. 

To him, this was normal. This was just part of his life. And yeah, maybe his life wasn’t quite like everyone else’s, but it was good, so why would he care? 

They made his father take him on a job. It was an opportunity he’d been waiting for forever, though his father seemed incredibly reluctant to bring him. He didn’t understand why- couldn’t understand why, even while his father protested that he was “too young, he’s still a kid, why couldn’t they wait a couple more years?” 

But Michael was excited. They were finally going to treat him like an adult- finally going to let him see their work. 

He didn’t really know what he expected. 

He hadn’t expected nearly that much blood. 

It’d made him sick. He’d always been a vaguely violent kid, but there was a difference between liking fighting and watching his dad carve someone open. He could still smell it weeks later. Could still hear that man’s muffled screams in his dreams.

It didn’t take him long to get used to it, though. The screams, the blood. He could remember it. But it didn’t bother him, not for long. He almost liked it. He definitely understood the appeal. 

What did bother him- what he couldn’t understand- is why they killed some of the people they did. Some of these people seemed innocent. Some of these people were innocent.

He knew it. He could tell. And sometimes they killed whole families- wives and children who had clearly done nothing wrong. 

It bothered him. He could handle the violence. But they were supposed to be the good guys, and good guys didn’t hurt people unless they deserved it. 

He asked his dad about it once- twice. His dad just shook his head. Didn’t respond. Just seemed sort of…disappointed. 

He got pretty used to being the disappointment. 

He asked too many questions. Wanted to know the why’s of what they were doing. Wanted to know who their marks were and what they had done.

When he was 16 they pulled him out of high school. He didn’t get a say in it- they decided he didn’t need any more schooling, since he was going to be an enforcer. It wasn’t like it really mattered, either. They practically owned the town, and everyone did what they wanted. 

That’s when the first inklings of the idea appeared in Michael’s head. It wasn’t yet a truly conscious thought, but it was starting to form. 

The problem was that no one is allowed to leave the Family. You were born into the Family, and you died a part of it, and in between you did what you were told. 

But for the first time, Michael wanted more from his life. He wanted to see other cities, to meet people who weren’t immediately scared of him because they knew who he was and who he worked for. 

But he knew that could never happen. He couldn’t leave. People didn’t leave. 

So he worked, instead. Did what he was told and ducked his head. He learned, eventually, not to questions.

That was a whole long road, though. A long road of him asking all the wrong questions to the wrong people. 

He learned just how quickly the Family will turn their back on you if they don’t think you support them. 

So he started supporting them. He needed them- didn’t have any way to survive on his own- didn’t know any other life. Didn’t have a plan, or anywhere he could go.

Days turned to months turned to years. This was his life. Kill who the Family told him. Threaten who the Family told him. Be what the Family needed him to be. 

He hated what he was doing. He was in his 20’s, then, and understood what he never could have as a kid. He was the bad guy in the movies- the goon who threatened the protagonist’s girl or family. He was disillusioned. His father had never been who he thought.

They were all just carbon copies of the same generic bad guy.

(So maybe he took it hard. It was a slow thing, just the realization that everything he thought was a lie, but eventually he just became sort of bitter. Jaded. He understood why his father had wanted to protect him so badly.)

He resented all of it. The Family. His own, personal family. The fact that he’d been born here, into this life, instead of anywhere else and into any other family.

But what could he do? This was the hand he was dealt in life. He had to work, and do what they told him to, and go where they told him, and hurt who they told him, and he got no say in the matter.

And he never would, either. He wasn’t born in the right family to rise up- could never hold any real power. He was a grunt. An enforcer.

He did all the dirty work and got none of the reward. 

And so, the idea formed. 

Perhaps he could escape this life. Perhaps he could escape this town, this city, and start again somewhere else, somewhere where he could be whatever he wanted.

But he had no means of leaving.

But it did not matter. It preoccupied his thoughts, consumed his every waking moment. What his life would be like, if he could live it anywhere else. 

And that’s when he stopped caring. Stopping being the dutiful good little Family boy. 

It wasn’t any one thing. Rather, it was his entire attitude. 

And eventually, they killed him for it. 

What else could they do? They had to make an example of him.

They beat him to death. It was brutal, wild, and violent. There was blood everywhere. His father was upset, obviously, but also made to take part, to prove his loyalty to the Family first and foremost. 

They dumped his body into the Atlantic. If it ever washed up, it’d be far away, and no longer their problem. 

He woke up on a beach in a town a couple of miles out. 

At first, he was confused. They’d killed him. They weren’t the sort to fuck that up. Was this heaven or hell then, a small New Jersey town.

But as he lay there on the beach, he noticed things. His body still felt sore, as if he’d been beaten days before, instead of what was perhaps hours ago. 

But eventually, he had to give up. Had to get off his ass, get off the beach, and go head to a 7-eleven. Ask the man what day it was, glance at the clock and see the time. 

Only a few hours had gone by. And he didn’t feel dead.

Well. Then probably he should get the fuck out of Jersey. 

Hitchhiking really wasn’t that hard. Walk along the freeway, catch a ride as far as they’d take him. Eventually he ended up at a rest stop in the Midwest somewhere.

And that’s when he found the body.

It was a young man. Well dressed, in a clearly expensive suit. Michael checked his pulse, and then, finding him dead, his pockets, but someone else had been there first.

But it was when he was checking the pockets that the man woke up.

“Fu….oh, hi.” The young man blinked lazily at him. “Fuck, man.” He rubbed his head, sitting up.

“I didn’t rob you.” Michael felt the need to say. “You were like this when I found you.”

“Wha…oh, I know.” The man nodded. “Made the mistake of stopping off here, and the bus left without me. Got jumped a coupla hours later.” He rubbed his eyes, looking at Michael blearily. “Ray.”

“Michael.” Michael paused, for a moment, before continuing. “You…you were dead a couple of seconds ago. Like fucking, honest to god dead. No pulse, and all that shit.” 

“No shit.” Ray didn’t seem surprised, exactly, but he sighed. “Just my luck that I can’t even die.”

“…I can’t, either.” Michael wasn’t sure why he was sharing that information, but it felt like he should.

Ray raised an eyebrow at him. “Damn, okay.” He stood up, brushing off his pants. “Where’re you headed, Michael?”

“I…don’t know.” Michael shook his head. “You?”

“Los Santos. Wanna come?” Ray grinned at him. 

“Sure. Why the fuck not.” Michael nodded. “How the fuck are you planning on getting there.” 

Ray grinned again, before reaching down his pants and pulling out a wad of cash. “They’ll never check your underwear. Too gay for them.”

And so one became two. And Michael and Ray headed over to Los Santos, after paying their way to a nearby town, where they bought a car. 

Once in Los Santos, they got an apartment. They got along well enough- in more ways than one- and figured they may as well stick together.

Eventually they ran into first Jack, and then Geoff and Gavin. Ray had remade himself in Los Santos as Brownman, the assassin who came when the shit hit the fan. Michael created Mogar, a raging monster all on its own. 

They made a name for themselves. And Jack noticed, and then brought them to Geoff. 

Geoff wanted to recruit them. He was trying to build a new empire, to fill the shoes of the Roosters. He already had Jack, his right hand, and Gavin, the young and reckless British man- a tech genius and gunman in his own right. 

They both loved and hated him, and so between that, and the slow realization that they were all immortal, they obviously had to join.

And so three became five.

They were almost ready to take the world by storm.


End file.
